Biotic indicators of carabid species richness on organically and conventionally managed arable fields

Carabids, a species rich arthropod family, potentially contribute much to biodiversity in agroecosystems, but assessing and monitoring carabid diversity is costly and time consuming. Therefore, this study aimed at finding more easily measurable parameters indicating high carabid diversity within organic and conventional management systems. Cover and number of weed species as well as activity density of single carabid species and of total carabids were investigated as potential indicators of carabid species richness. The study was carried out near Reckenfeld in Westphalia on sandy Plaggenesch soils. Three organically and four conventionally managed fields (cereals and corn) were investigated at the field margins and in the field centres from April to August 1999. Additionally, data of carabid catches and weed flora in winter cereals from an extended study in Düren (Northrhine-Westphalia) were reanalysed to validate the results. However, neither of the potential indicators showed consistently significant positive correlation with carabid diversity. This is partly attributed to the low variability of management conditions within the management systems in the studies presented

Does EELS haunt your photoemission measurements?

It has been argued in a recent paper by R. Joynt (R. Joynt, Science 284, p 777 (1999)) that in the case of poorly conducting solids the photoemission spectrum close to the Fermi Energy may be strongly influenced by extrinsic loss processes similar to those occurring in High Resolution Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (HR-EELS), thereby obscuring information concerning the density of states or one electron Green's function sought for. In this paper we present a number of arguments, both theoretical and experimental, that demonstrate that energy loss processes occurring once the electron is outside the solid, contribute only weakly to the spectrum and can in most cases be either neglected or treated as a weak structureless background.Comment: 6 pages, figures included. Submitted to PR

Electron spin resonance on a 2-dimensional electron gas in a single AlAs quantum well

Direct electron spin resonance (ESR) on a high mobility two dimensional electron gas in a single AlAs quantum well reveals an electronic $g$-factor of 1.991 at 9.35 GHz and 1.989 at 34 GHz with a minimum linewidth of 7 Gauss. The ESR amplitude and its temperature dependence suggest that the signal originates from the effective magnetic field caused by the spin orbit-interaction and a modulation of the electron wavevector caused by the microwave electric field. This contrasts markedly to conventional ESR that detects through the microwave magnetic field.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Update on fast ion instability simulations for the CLIC main linac

The specification for vacuum pressure in the CLIC electron Main Linac critically depends on the fast ion instability. In fact, the maximum tolerable pressure value in the pipe of the Main Linac is dictated by the threshold above which the fast ion instability sets in over a CLIC bunch train. Previous calculation based on ion generation from scattering ionization of the residual gas alone showed that, due to the loss of the trapping along the linac caused by the beam size shrinking from acceleration, a pressure as high as 10 nTorr could be accepted, higher than the tolerable value in the long transfer line. However, since the accelerated beam becomes transversely very small, its electric field can reach values above the field ionization threshold. When this happens, the whole space region with a sufficiently high electric field gets instantly fully ionized by the first bunch and the effect on the bunch train could be severe. We have modeled field ionization in our simulation code FASTION and re-evaluated the onset of fast ion instability in the Main Linac

Predicting soil moisture conditions for arable free draining soils in Ireland under spring cereal crop production

peer-reviewedTemporal prediction of soil moisture and evapotranspiration has a crucial role in agricultural and environmental management. A lack of Irish models for predicting evapotranspiration and soil moisture conditions for arable soils still represents a knowledge gap in this particular area of Irish agro-climatic modelling. The soil moisture deficit (SMD) crop model presented in this paper is based on the SMD hybrid model for Irish grassland (Schulte et al., 2005). Crop and site specific components (free-draining soil) have been integrated in the new model, which was calibrated and tested using soil tension measurements from two experimental sites located on a well-drained soil under spring barley cultivation in south-eastern Ireland. Calibration of the model gave an R2 of 0.71 for the relationship between predicted SMD and measured soil tension, while model testing yielded R2 values of 0.67 and 0.65 (two sites). The crop model presented here is designed to predict soil moisture conditions and effective drainage (i.e., leaching events). The model provided reasonable predictions of soil moisture conditions and effective drainage within its boundaries, i.e., free-draining land used for spring cereal production under Irish conditions. In general, the model is simple and practical due to the small number of required input parameters, and due to model outputs that have good practical applicability, such as for computing the cumulative amount of watersoluble nutrients leached from arable land under spring cereals in free-draining soils

Fast Ion Instability in the CLIC Transfer Line and Main LINAC

The Fast Ion Instability is believed to be a serious danger for bunch trains propagating in the CLIC electron transfer line and main linac, since it may strongly affect the bunches in the tail of the train if the vacuum pressure is not below a certain threshold. We have developed the FASTION code, which can track electrons through a FODO cell line and takes into account their interactions with the produced (and possibly trapped) ions. We describe how this tool can be used for setting tolerances on the vacuum pressure and for giving specifications for the design of a feedback system

Creaming and parking in marketized employment services: an Anglo-German comparison

The delivery of public services by nonprofit and for-profit providers alters the nature of services and jobs, often in unintended and undesired ways. We argue that these effects depend on the degree to which the service is ‘marketised’, i.e. whether its funder subjects it to price-based competition. Using case studies of British and German employment services, this paper scrutinises the link between funding practices and service quality. Of particular concern in marketised employment services is the problem of ‘creaming and parking’, in which providers select job-ready clients for services and neglect clients more distant from the labour market. We explore three questions. What are the mechanisms through which marketization produces creaming and parking? What are the differences between these mechanisms in commercial and non-commercial service providers? Which national institutions might serve as a buffer for the landscape of service provision facing price-based competition